Agricultural harvesters, such as agricultural combines, are designed to travel through agricultural fields harvesting crops. Agricultural combines receive crop severed from the ground and convey it to threshing, separating and cleaning devices within the agricultural combine.
In order to convey the cut crop material through the combine a variety of conveyors are used. In one typical arrangement, the conveyors comprise a rotating cylinder with protrusions extending from its outermost surface to engage the cut crop material and move it rearward.
These cylinders may be driven at high speed (e.g. 200-1200 RPM) in order to throw the cut crop material further.
Unless these cylinders are well-balanced, the high speed of rotation can cause them to oscillate, shaking the combine, and damaging components.
One significant source of imbalance is the accumulation of dirt, chaff, straw, and crop within the hollow interior of the cylinder. This material filters into the cylinder through open ends of the cylinder, through access holes, or gaps between multiple sections of the cylinder. The accumulation will dry, become hardened, and adhere to the inner surface of the cylinder.
One way to reduce this accumulation of material is to fill the cylindrical voids with rubber, expanded foam, or other materials. Unfortunately, this material significantly increases the weight of the cylinders. Further, since it is “glued” to the inner surfaces of the cylinder and the driveshaft upon which the cylinder is mounted, the rotating cylinder conveyors cannot be easily disassembled.
What is needed is a filler for a cylindrical conveyor that can be easily inserted and removed for maintenance purposes, is lightweight and effectively fills a void inside the cylindrical conveyor to exclude contaminants that would otherwise form within the cylindrical conveyor, imbalance the conveyor, and make the cylindrical conveyor difficult to clean.
It is an object of this invention to provide such an arrangement.